After arrival at Kystmuseet
we first watched a 10 minute video about the wave power plants at
Toftestallen, and a historical video about life in Øygarden in former
times. This was followed by an interesting tour through the permanent
historical exhibition, guided by Bjørg Christophersen. After eating
Betasuppe we watched the temporal exhibition of wave paintings from the
by Extreme Wave Theory Project
of the British painter Janette Kerr.

Afterwards we drove 10 minutes southwards, to visit the ruins of the two power plants at Toftestallen.

From the parking place we walked 15-20 minutes, first on gravel path,
and then in the rocky terrain out to the cliffs where the ruins power
plants are located.

First
we passed the "Tapchan" plant, which was designed and constructed by
the company Norwave Technology from Oslo. This first prototype was built
in 1986 and was operated until 1991. It is based on the principle of
waves being lead through a narrowing concrete channel, and splashing
over to fill a basin. A generator then extracts energy from the water
returning to sea level.

An
attempt to widen the channel lead to a blasting accident which
destroyed the plant. It was thereafter shut down in 1991, and Norwave
Technologies went bankrupt the same year. There were also suspicion of
economical criminality, as discussed in these two articles from Bergens
Tidende:

The
second pilot plant depends, a powerful organ pipe equal, in a rock
alcove west of the city of Bergen and works like a water flask. The 'Swinging column' was after four years of development, already in 1984 by the Kvaerner Brug AS established in Oslo. It is a stable concrete of about 16 m high with a seaward open chamber into which run in the waves. It
comprises under the water surface A 3.5 m wide opening which opens in a
vertical concrete shaft, an air turbine located in the upper part
thereof having a diameter of 2 m and a weight of 9 t. The pent-up in the chamber shaft drives water into the bay: the water level rises. When
the shaft runs and flows, the water level decreases again it oscillates
with the frequency of up to 7 m swell up and down and acts like a
piston, driving the air from the chamber through the turbine and through
the turbine back into the chamber sucks.

The
used herein, Wells turbine 'retains regardless of the direction of flow
of air always in the same direction, and this. With a fairly uniform
speed of 1,000 to 1,500 r / min The plant should have had 500 kW of power. However, was objected to the extremely high volume of air propeller, rather sounded like a siren.

In
early 1989, the company announced that a violent storm had torn the
test facility, and sent out to the open sea where they had fallen. It is impossible to predict whether the plant, which had cost DM 106 million, could be recovered again.

There are also attempts to Norway, bundling 'of shafts to a depth of 30 m using so-called, wave lenses'. It
is estimated that a 150 km long chain of 1 kW shaft generators could
the total annual demand of 70 billion kilowatt-hours cover (as of 1980).